Projects

Overlook Farm

2012

In late 2012, NBW was engaged to re-envision Overlook, a 320 acre family estate in Dalton, Pennsylvania. A cultural heritage landscape, in the early 20th century the Olmsted Brothers were commissioned to design and implement plans for what was to be a weekend and summer retreat. Now, after over 100 years of continuous family residence and connection to this land, the client has tapped Nelson Byrd Woltz to establish a Stewardship Plan to assure the health, productivity and profitability of the Overlook landscape sustainably into the future. NBW’s Conservation Agriculture Studio are creating a plan for Overlook which strives to preserve the property’s rich ecosystems, celebrate cultural heritage and establish a model of agricultural production which will maximize production potential in tandem with ecological stewardship.

An integral part of the Conservation Agriculture Studio is the Biological Baseline Survey (BioBlitz). This rapid ecological assay joins NBW with a distinguished group of Ecologists from the Roosevelt Wildlife Station in Syracuse, New York. During the beginning of summer, between June 20-23 we joined forces for a long weekend of camping, collection, collaboration and observation as we delved into the wildlife of Overlook. Resulting information was then synthesized with possible habitat range to generate population estimates to be designed into the long term plan of the property.